Work in Progress: James Joyce and Photographic Images

In Dubliners (1914), James Joyce’s intention to ‘betray the soul of that hemiplegia or paralysis which many consider a city’ is complicated by his explicit references to photography and photographic devices. Like hemiplegia, the paralysis of just one side of the body, the photographs in Joyce’s work perform a dual function, both reinforcing the domestic and emotional stasis that his characters face whilst inviting the possibilities of innovation and escape.